Does he make a solid point?

[Anonymous No.13204527]

Started reading Zarathustra and so far it seems to me like average reddit tier fedora-posting
A lot of the times when I read these philosophers that are publicly applauded for being geniuses of their age etc. I feel like I either don't get it or that there is close to nothing of value or combination of the two
Do I not get him or whats his thesis other than "lol god is a lie" and "lol materialism is good" and average cringey atheistic egotripping "I am the god" or "I am the prelude to god"

[Anonymous No.13204587]

>>13204527
Don't bother with Zarathustra, drop it altogether and pick up Beyond Good and Evil or On Genealogy of Morals (shorter). TSZ is convoluted for convolution's sake. "hhuuu he went under the volcano to talk with cerberus" just fuck off neech

[Anonymous No.13204627]

>>13204527
Yes he does
It is essentially a philosophical novel, the character is meant to be an edgy retard at the beginning of it

[Anonymous No.13204674]

>>13204527
The symptomatic analysis he does is pretty good. His proposals to solve problems with these symptoms are shameful and cringy.

[Anonymous No.13204711]

>>13204527
why are there scratches on his forehead

[Anonymous No.13204759]

>>13204711
he was harry potter irl

[Anonymous No.13204833]

>>13204527
What's your background besides browsing Reddit?

[Anonymous No.13204844]

>>13204711
The Boy who Willed

[Anonymous No.13204858]

He's very overrated. Basically just the Alan Watts of his time who said a bunch of cool sounding things but didn't actually mean anything.

[Anonymous No.13204866]

>>13204858
I can't tell if posts like this are serious or not. No offense, but I hope you and the several on here who make similar posts are trolling.

[Anonymous No.13204894]

>>13204527
>average reddit tier fedora-posting

Lazy 4chan lingo that basically translates to "I scan texts for reasons to dismiss them." Try improving your reading comprehension, your ability to articulate will likely follow.

[Anonymous No.13204956]

>>13204527
>lol god is a lie
>lol materialism is good
>I am the god
>I am the prelude to god

The main problem here is that you are not even in the same conceptual ballpark as Nietzsche, you probably don't have the terminology or philosophical background to understand what to try and understand. Whether or not there is or isn't value in Nietzsche isn't something you are in a position to assess; if you took the time to be able to understand what he's saying, you might find it useless.

The only possible way you can hope to understand Nietzsche at this point is to read a good secondary source. Don't even bother trying to read any of his other works, you won't know what the fuck is happening. I personally enjoyed Deleuze's book on Nietzsche (Nietzsche and Philosophy), but that's not necessarily an accurate portrayal of it; but it will show you just how small your scope of thought is.

[Anonymous No.13204982]

>>13204866
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.13205014]

>>13204982
I really don't think I need one if you're serious.

[Anonymous No.13205120]

>>13204894
no fedoranon, I just thought he'd have deeper message other than being purely anti-x ( anti-religious for example ) followed by thesis of pro-x ( religion of the ego ), which I have not found as of yet, but hopefully I just didn't catch the "inner message" and this isnt just a giant bs on friedrichs part
>>13204956
I'd say I'm familiar enough with philosophy, maybe its just different mindset, I'll give the book a try though and see if it helps me
ty for suggestion

[Anonymous No.13205183]

>>13204956
i am reading N and I have a very poor background. What's wrong with taking his points at face value instead of trying to milk deeper meaning? And I'm not talking about reducing his wrk to memes, but just the simple ideas

[Anonymous No.13205190]

>Dude you can reach enlightenment on your own away from any civilization or collective consciousness that probably knows yourself better then you do
hack

[Anonymous No.13205312]

>>13204956
no, the OP is right. He used his common sense to interpret what Nietzsche says in his overly ambitious attempt to replace the void left by religion with "lol, just be more than human' while providing no real motivation to do so if life truly is meaningless. It's clear for anybody to see. No amount of philosophical "super secret deeper meaning that is only revealed to the serious student" can change that.

[Anonymous No.13205377]

>>13205183
The deeper meanings you're talking about are the 'simple ideas'. What you mean by the 'face value' points are often just wrong applications of the 'simple ideas' which actually make up the philosophy. A lot of philosophy is a philosopher saying the same thing over and over and over in different contexts until you can hopefully understand the simple but nuanced thing he's trying to communicate, a lot like doing various addition equations with different numbers, if the principle of addition is what you're trying to teach. Nobody starts with "god is a lie", that's what they arrive at; and nothing that arrives at "god is a lie" is going to stop there, it's going to imply thousands of things in all aspects of life and knowledge outside of "god is a lie" or even religion for that matter, which is only one implication. You may know that a philosopher is communicating to you that God is bad, but if you don't understand the principal of which that incidental conclusion was drawn, you don't understand the philosophy. Philosophy is microscopic.

[Anonymous No.13205530]

>>13205312
But life is not meaningless. It is MADE meaningless by nihilistic beliefs and philosophies, such as Christianity, which purports an afterlife, the very existence of which by necessity reduces the value of this life to a pretext of another, always regarded as greater one.

Nietzsche defines nihilism as an emptying of the world of one or more categories of meaning. His philosophy is anti-nihilism, pro-life. Everything is meaningful under Nietzsche; even meaninglessness is a kind of meaning we give to things with him. He reversed the entire system of logic that was built on the Christian notion of truth, which was never the ultimate truth (there isn't any as far as the Christian's notion of ultimate truth is concerned), and brought it back to the body as the source of truth as opposed to an external abstraction like God as the source of it. Everything that the body experiences, is part of the body's interpretation; meaningfulness and meaninglessness have nothing to do with abstractions but with the state of the body that projects these interpretations. Under his philosophy, you can learn to value this life again. He wants you to experience joy here on earth.

His condemnation of Christianity is that it was founded by individuals who instinctively felt that life was meaningless, individuals who saw no value in this life (likely because they were terrible at living in it) and as a result they projected their weakness onto paper and developed a system of values that devalued life in exchange for everything beyond, everything abstract, everything by definition not real or knowable or interactive or substantial. He doesn't condemn Christianity from a position of resentment towards the religion at all; instead, he experiences joy for this life, and sees Christianity as the nullification of that joy, and as a result concludes that Christianity must be born out of a bodily sickness that is incapable of experiencing joy in things in this life.

[Anonymous No.13205637]

Man, wtf is wrong with these people. Why do you post on a literature board if you lack reading comprehension and the desire to work hard to understand something above you. If you haven't read many of his others works, none of it is going to make sense. How are you going to understand his metaphors, references, the philosophers he's criticising, etc. Damn, even if most of it goes over your head, how can you not enjoy it as literature; it's a nice read.

[Anonymous No.13206472]

Y u mad tho?

[Anonymous No.13206583]

>>13204527
Zarathustra is essentially about eternal return. You have to understand this concept before you read TSZ. Basically, Nietzsche is mocking himself and rethinking what philosophy can be--a parable, a story, an image or likeness. He emphasizes throughout his writings that he wanted to create a philosophy for the future, hence the subtitle at the beginning of TSZ: "A book for all and none." As he says of God's death in aphorism 125 of the Gay Science, his philosophy will take time to be understood, for we are too close to the event to be able to observe any consequences.

To be specific, he wants to move away from Plato's elevated, abstract kind of philosophy, which purports to adhere solely to reason, to a more earthly, embodied kind of philosophy that one lives by. From Apollo to Dionysus, which he discusses in The Birth of Tragedy.

[Anonymous No.13206898]

start with the genealogy of morals

[Anonymous No.13207611]

>>13205530
based

[Anonymous No.13208000]

>>13205190
NPC

[Anonymous No.13208256]

>>13205530
>It is MADE meaningless by nihilistic beliefs and philosophies, such as Christianity, which purports an afterlife
>the very existence of which by necessity reduces the value of this life to a pretext of another
Pretext has no reason to be invalid. It's like saying that rewards or outcomes disqualify work, or that change disqualifies being. You can always expand the horizon, and whilst all previous states will inevitably be smaller, it doesn't make them less valid, except in our ape brains. Expanding from them towards a 'greater truth' will reveal the validity of ape brains after humbling them.

[Anonymous No.13208314]

>>13208256
this is peterson-tier brainletism

[Anonymous No.13208328]

>reddit fedora
stopped reading right there
fuck off back to /pol/ with your pathetic buzzwords you christcuck retard

[Anonymous No.13208968]

>>13208256
>It's like saying that rewards or outcomes disqualify work
This is a good comparison, as it shows that when there is an afterlife, life becomes viewed as work, or a trial to be measured by. Enjoyment in life itself becomes a secondary, superfluous thing, rather than the goal, just like how pleasure in your work is not required in order to do the work (though it might increase productivity to, but again, the pleasure is now being viewed as of secondary importance, productivity being of primary importance). You don't even realize how you degrade life when you believe in an afterlife. An afterlife subjugates life to a pretext, and that in itself is degradation of life. Life is all there is, it is the goal, it is of primary importance, it is the reward itself, and it is the most beautiful and joyful thing we can experience with no comparison.

[Anonymous No.13209027]

>>13204527
We're living in a world where everyone who mattered in the last 100 years have read Nietzsche, that's how popular he is. Almost everything meritorious that was contained in his writings have already been inferred by the general culture, and thus by you during your upbringing surrounded by said general culture, unless you're particularly slow or grew up in some uncommon environment. If you grew up normally and not a total brainlet, however, all the good points that Nietzsche makes would be already familiar too you, and unless you specifically love the rest of his characteristics (poetic edginess for the sake of poetic edginess mingled with questionably successful cope) it's quite understandable you don't find him groundbreaking.

[Anonymous No.13209111]

>>13208968
You can't truly enjoy life without a measure for it to be measured by. Afterlife, when you don't take it stone literally but exercise some discreet in understanding, is no more and no less than a measure. You may think that having a measure degrades life but it's actually the other way around. What Nietzsche advocates for is to create your own measure, not to throw it away altogether. And while he hated Christianity for a number of reasons, its Platonic roots being among them (which reason as I suspect goes all the way up to Nietzsche abhorring his own analytic abilities that caused him much trouble with enjoying life, and abhorring Socrates by extension), Christian approach to the problem is by no means bad by itself, that is unless you misread it in an unfit way, accidentally or deliberately. Which is what Nietzsche did.

[Anonymous No.13209146]

>>13205120
>I just thought he'd have deeper message other than being purely anti-x ( anti-religious for example ) followed by thesis of pro-x ( religion of the ego )
Not him but I think you might be a moron and it might be terminal

[Anonymous No.13209151]

>>13205377
>>13204956
Man you have the patience of a saint.

[Anonymous No.13209165]

>>13209111
>You may think that having a measure degrades life but it's actually the other way around.
That is not what I think, though. I realize that a measure is needed in order to enjoy life, but that doesn't necessitate an afterlife—there are other metrics. Something that is by definition not part of life is not my idea of a good metric for it.

[Anonymous No.13209215]

>>13209165
Again, afterlife is to be taken not literally (as far as I understand the theology would say to you it's outside the temporality, which would immediately invalidate any views of it that take a metaphor of "today is shitty but tomorrow will be better" -- specifically because such a "tomorrow" never (in the temporal sense) comes. With this misunderstanding cleared, Christian "afterlife" is no more than an abstract idea of a measure.
>Something that is by definition not part of life is not my idea of a good metric for it.
The measure is by definition external. Just as any meaning you may try to find in life is external, that is, imposed by you, the same holds for the measure; in fact, meaning and measure are practically synonymous in this context. The whole point of these theological and philosophical exercises, whether you take Nietzsche or Christians, is to tear oneself from the purely worldly dialectics of pleasure and pain and find the basis for one's existence outside of said dialectics. I'm not ready to intelligibly explain why such an operation is necessary in the first place, but even if you don't believe Nietzsche or Christians on this account, this necessity should be within intuitive grasp especially in modern times.

[Anonymous No.13209272]

>>13209215
>Again, afterlife is to be taken not literally
That's not my problem with it. My problem with it is that it is taken at all. It's as if one is measuring the value of this life based on the nothingness one experienced prior to birth—the afterlife is this nothingness to me. It is an absurd approach to valuation. Essentially, it's anti-valuation.

>With this misunderstanding cleared, Christian "afterlife" is no more than an abstract idea of a measure.
And it is a poor one because it has nothing to do with you at all and never will, since death does not occur in our universe; energy simply transforms and recurs.

>The measure is by definition external. Just as any meaning you may try to find in life is external, that is, imposed by you
But you are not external to the world, so this is false. All meaning-making is life itself giving life to itself. Removing the center of life from life and placing it in nothingness is how you create life-denying meaning. It is not the only way to create meaning.

>The whole point of these theological and philosophical exercises, whether you take Nietzsche or Christians, is to tear oneself from the purely worldly dialectics of pleasure and pain and find the basis for one's existence outside of said dialectics.
That was the point since Plato and up until Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.13209351]

>>13209151
This. If you drop the debate with the brainlet we wouldn't think any less of you.

[Anonymous No.13209408]

Nietzsche doesn't like religion on the basis that it's a sham, but rather he has an issue with Christian morality. He loved Islam and Buddhism.
Read the genealogy of morals.

[Anonymous No.13209416]

>>13209408
>He loved Islam
no he didn't, he put in a few good words about it but in contrast to another trend he was combatting

>He loved Buddhism
no he didn't, his evaluation of Buddhism had some good words and some bad.

[Anonymous No.13209548]

>>13204527
> close to nothing of value
Nietzsche's system of philosophy was mostly about organizing your values hierarchically and achieving them. He viewed other philosophers/people as beginning their pursuits of achieving value via appropriation. Philosophers, for example, often seek truth. Christians follow what is told to them to be moral. Half-nihilists like Schopenhauer and Kant submit to objective abstractions. And although animals follow their values in a pure way, they aren't sophisticated like humans are so to copy that is not a human thing to do, it's not about just doing whatever you want in the moment, it's about maximizing your own value in human terms, with longevity in size and scope. I think he crystalized the core of human values into a sort of pursuit of power for the sake of power. There is also some evidence that a lot of his philosophy seems to originate from an attitude about sex and power. His philosophy is powerful to a lot of people from all walks of life, I suspect it's because a lot of people have repressed their sexuality and feel trapped in a mind-prison of appropriated values and they think it's refreshing to read and helps them get themselves back into what they really want in life and how to get it, sometimes this leads people to misinterpret what he writes and become assholes though so it's dubious self-help advice. Philosophically, I think his writing is interesting because it calls attention to values and how we as individuals, and even as groups, should organize them. That topic had not been approached *in this specific way* prior. Most people were just setting up moral systems based on religious texts, categorical abstractions, animalistic attitudes, and nihilistic ideas, so it's kind of original. I think he was right in his criticisms but wrong in the system he was establishing , like most philosophers his ideas were ultimately themselves based on the abstractions he himself criticized, which is why his text sometimes seems to contradict itself and feel kind of wrong if you're listening and paying attention to what he is saying. But the study of values is really an interesting topic and I think he's worth reading. It's also refreshing after spending years reading transcendental idealism.

[Anonymous No.13209617]

>>13204527
Don't even think of reading TSZ before reading some of what I've listed below. You won't understand and it will just seem like convoluted, cringeworthy bullshit.

You have to understand that Nietzsche wasn't some Reddit-posting numale who one day decided to write out his various theories. The man really was intelligent, well-educated, and deeply knowledgeable about religion, history, metaphysics, etc. He read, at least, German, Greek, Latin, and French (Italian as well, I believe), and was an accomplished philologist prior to essentially going mad and deciding to write whatever the fuck he wanted rather than the constant trivial analyses of Homer and Virgil pumped out by philologists.

TSZ is the result of the many excellent books NZ had published beforehand. It's not a guide or explanation of anything. It's not a traditional philosophical work. It's a series of parables dealing with a mythological character.

If you want to keep up with him and come of Zarathustra having learned something, you need to have read several of his more traditional (though still exceedingly untraditional) works. The Joyous Science, Genealogy of Morals, BGE, etc. The Birth of Tragedy is his most traditional work (it's also his first) and is probably the work that I would recommend beginning with, though it can be a bit tedious at points (made up for by its overall brevity).

Knowledge of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and pre-Christian paganism is also essential to understanding his work. Not necessarily esoteric knowledge, just that Christianity constituted a complete, though gradual, shift in European morality, shift in what is considered virtuous (strength, honor, valor, and courage become sins, meekness and guilt are exalted, etc)

Also, remember that NZ was literally insane. Like, he actually had something wrong with his brain that caused to become nonfunctional at a young age.

[Anonymous No.13210179]

>>13209272
>It's as if one is measuring the value of this life based on the nothingness one experienced prior to birth—the afterlife is this nothingness to me.
Why, it is indeed nothingness. The valuation is nothingness since that value is self-contained instead of serving some other purpose. As such, the valuation is inherently absurd. You introduce value where there was none.
>That was the point since Plato and up until Nietzsche.
Nietzsche would surely qualify for being outside of the pleasure-pain dichotomy.
>All meaning-making is life itself giving life to itself.
Yeah, but life itself has no meaning so it cannot give itself one. Yet is has to give itself one. That's the whole philosophical difficulty around which Nietzsche, among others, works. It requires a paradoxical meaning of life that is both external and internal to life. Say, Kierkegaard would employ the dichotomy of the objective and the subjective thinking to not get confused in all this. Sure, if you are not careful in operating this paradox you'd fall into either being determined by life (hedonism and many different views, even stoicism, falls here) or disregarding life (overly metaphysical religiosity falls here). My point is merely that Christianity does not flatly go into the second category but generally balances between the two, despite Nietzsche's misconceptions, and you can well go where Nietzsche went starting with Christianity, as illustrated by said Kierkegaard.

[Anonymous No.13211728]

>>13204527
>>13205530
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR8n9uzcl60

[Anonymous No.13211838]

https://youtu.be/A4gwDfANeAU

[Anonymous No.13212899]

>>13204982
molyfags are the worst kinds of people

[Anonymous No.13212911]

>>13204527
>I feel like I either don't get it or that there is close to nothing of value or combination of the two
welcome to modern philosophy